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By Tania Dennison (Programme Advisor for Africa)
09 Sep 2010
Well it’s about time to leave Vélingara for the long journey back to Dakar. But before signing off from this trip I thought I’d report back on a major innovation involving the treatment of wounds.
During my last visit I shared with the AVSF (Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières’ - Agriculturalists and Veterinary Surgeons without Borders) team a method of treatment that has proved successful in Ethiopia – the use of salt water, a clean piece of cotton and Vaseline to treat wounds.
All these items are locally available, at low cost and easy to apply. Plus it puts the treatment of wounds back in the hands of the animal owners – rather than relying on the intervention of a vet - and ensures the wounds can be cleaned twice daily (as the owner is always with the animal).
After seeing the amazing results in Ethiopia, the AVSF team decided to carry out something similar, and started to demonstrate to owners how to carry out this simple form of treatment themselves.
Vaseline, which is used to smooth round the wound edges, is difficult to source here so the team researched locally available solutions and found some local butter called Karité. The results have been spectacular with wounds healing within a week and it’s now the talk of the horse owning community.
How rewarding to see our techniques being adopted by the animal owners and being widely promoted by them. As they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
Your comments
Jackie The simple things are the best things and lets face it, nature has all the answers!! Cheap and effective, easy for the owners to use....wonderful!
Jill Ford I make a monthly donation to the Brooke, not least because they do all they can to give these creatures the respect and care they deserve, but mainly they address the cause of suffering by educating the owners, it seems a lot of cruelty is due to ignorance,and with simple solutions can be prevented like Jackie says. My job's on the line like most people's but as long as I'm earning I'll pay!
Jill.
S F Zaman Even in the era of fourth generation antibiotics, simple treatment still works which has been demonstrated in Ethiopia. Wonderful it is!Simple, cheap, easy, available and of course doable. Diseases or ailments actually do not need complex treatment (approach), it is we the human beings(mostly vets)prefer it.
Let us practise in in our countries and see the results.
S F Zaman
Seydou Hamadou ohh nice ,I like this method of treatement , I'll apply it during my clinical pratices but I want to if there is no other conditions for the vaseline ?
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